[Peace] IDF Resolution Against US Military Response to Attacks

[Jeff Machota]

IDF Resolution Against US Military Response to Attacks
Passed by the Board of Directors, September 18, 2001

*Whereas the Board of the Directors, staff, and programs of the
Illinois Disciples Foundation abhor the September 11, 2001 attacks in
New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania against people from many
nations;

*Whereas we mourn the loss of the yet untold thousands of lives as a
result of the attack;

*Whereas violence begets violence in an ever tightening spiral of
retaliatory violence;

*Whereas the Illinois Disciples Foundation has always stood for
social justice against oppression and for self-determination for all
peoples;

*Whereas the Illinois Disciples Foundation opposes racism and
vigilantism, including government attacks on any group for its
ethnicity or belief system;

*Whereas the Illinois Disciples Foundation is horrified by statements
from U.S. government officials calling the Middle East uncivilized,
thereby dehumanizing, belittling, and demonizing Arab peoples;

*Whereas the Illinois Disciples Foundation abhors the recent attacks
that have occurred against Arab, Arab American, and Muslim people in
the U.S. as a result of such dehumanization;

*Whereas the Illinois Disciples Foundation has consistently opposed
terrorism of any form by any state or group, including U.S. carpet
bombing and free-fire zones during the Vietnam War and similar
bombing campaigns against the people of Iraq and other states;

*Whereas the United States Central Intelligence Agency has trained,
funded, and supported terrorist groups in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and
many other areas of the world, including even Osama Bin Laden himself;

*Whereas the Illinois Disciples Foundation has participated in draft
and military counseling during the Vietnam and Gulf Wars, and
recognizes that it is mainly working-class and poor people who give
their lives in these conflicts, not members of the U.S. political or
economic elite;

*Whereas the murder of innocent civilians is a crime under
international law and the U.S. Constitution and ruins, the lives of
those who survive, leaving pain that often results in Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder and other debilitating forms of grieving;

*Whereas the Illinois Disciples Foundation has supported the victims
of war, including the soldiers themselves;

*Whereas often nationalism such as is currently rampant in the U.S.
spills over into jingoism, and the Illinois Disciples Foundation has
always opposed uncritical patriotism for this reason;

Therefore, be it resolved that the Illinois Disciples Foundation shall

*Promote continued contributions of relief aid and other support to
the victims of the attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C.;

*Defend and support the civil liberties and civil rights of those who
may become targets for U.S. government or vigilante attack based on
their ethnicity and religious or political beliefs;

*Stand in solidarity as a religious institution with all Muslim
peoples, and call on the U.S. government to assure the right of
Muslim peoples to gather in worship without risk of attack;

*Use our resources to urge restraint on the part of the U.S.
government in this dangerous period of national anger and shock.
Thoughtless military retaliation against presumed enemies or their
supporters and the use of assassination as a legitimized tool of
diplomacy will not further or protect civilization, but rather,
signal its formal and complete demise;

*Do everything in our power to assure that not one more person has to
cope with the debilitating effects caused by participation in combat,
such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder;

*Call upon those bodies responsible for upholding international law
to hold the U.S. accountable to these laws in its response to the
recent attacks;

* Call upon U.S. citizens to look critically at U.S. foreign policy
and to remember those hurt by it, including people living in the
Middle East;

*Call upon the Christian Church in Illinois and Wisconsin to
encourage and nurture critical social and theological analysis of
Bush's policies;

*Continue our social justice mission through local education and
community action with the goal of effecting positive and progressive
change in United States' policies toward the rest of the world.